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An Italian buyout firm is poised to take a 50% stake in Aston Martin in a deal that values the luxury UK carmaker at £750m, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Investindustrial, which was set up in 1999 and has more than €3bn of assets under management, is close to signing a final agreement to buy the stake from Aston Martin’s Kuwaiti owner, The Investment Dar, in the next few 24 hours, the person said. The Investment Dar, a Kuwaiti finance house, will retain the remaining stake. The person said the deal was “almost tied up”.

The buyout firm had reached an accord to buy the stake last night. However, Indian carmaker Mahindra & Mahindra, the only competing bidder for the company, responded with a higher counter offer, the person said.

Both offers now give the business – famous for producing the cars favoured by screen spy James Bond – an enterprise value of £750m. Investindustrial, which will provide an equity investment of about £250m, is understood to have emphasised its plans to invest in new technology.

Investindustrial and Mahindra both declined to comment.

Investindustrial is understood to have an agreement with Mercedes to act as a technical partner on the deal. If the acquisition goes through, the German carmaker will provide engines, gearboxes and other technical expertise.

It is also expected that Mercedes will take a small equity stake in the business at a future date, a person close to the deal added. US carmaker Ford is currently Aston Martin’s technical partner. Mercedes was unavailable for comment.

It is understood that both the bids from Investindustrial and Mahindra & Mahindra included plans to keep production at Aston Martin’s main plant in Gaydon, Warwickshire.

In recent months there has been increasing press speculation that Aston Martin was up for sale. However, The Investment Dar has previously denied these reports. The Investment Dar and Aston Martin did not return calls seeking comment.

The Investment Dar bought Aston Martin for £479m in 2007 but struggled under the debt load used to fund its acquisitions. In February 2011, lenders reportedly agreed to take a 10% stake in The Investment Dar in exchange for an initial $70m equity injection and full repayment of its $3.7bn debt pile in under a decade.

Investindustrial has experience in luxury vehicles after buying a stake in Italian motorbike maker Ducati in 2006 and netting a three-times return on its investment when it sold the business to car maker Audi for $1.1bn in July. The firm, led by Andrea Bonomi, is also in exclusive talks to buy tyremaker Pirelli, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The Investment Dar and Mercedes were unavailable for comment at the time of going to press.